Podcast 2013 – Episode 31 – Sarah Has an Embolism

Honestly by far the biggest story of the week was the final stage of the Giro della Toscana, and the rider protest so we take a detailed and quite angry look into what led up to it and once we’re on a ranty roll, well we keep going! Which means we launch into exactly why Brian Cookson’s words about his track record of promoting women’s cycling in Britain leave us scratching our heads a little (Dan translates for Sarah’s edification). Also somewhere along the way Dan coins the phrase “morality stumble” – we’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s a stumble into, or out of, morality. And in an attempt to finish the show before Sarah actually does need medical assistance we quickly mention a few of the good stories we’ve seen during the week. Prepare to gnash your teeth! (1:07:17 MIN / 64.56 MB)

(In fact this week’s podcast is SO ranty that Sarah especially requested I find a soothing music video for you in case of emergencies, so here’s a rather splendid cello cover of Metallica’s ‘The Day That Never Comes’ which sort of seems appropriate)

“Nicole has her point-of-view on lots of things and she didn’t always see eye-to-eye with British Cycling,” Cookson says. “But we went out of our way to support her in the best way we could. Elite athletes are interesting, aren’t they? They have personalities that are sometimes difficult to handle – and Nicole is one of those people who has a particular view of things which she’s absolutely entitled to.”

It’s disconcerting how many other prominent women – Victoria Pendleton, Emma Pooley and Lizzie Armitstead – have also criticised British Cycling. “That’s true. But if you speak to Laura Trott or Jo Rowsell you’ll hear another view.”

(He says “performance advice” played a part in the decision not to start a women’s Team Sky. Here’s how some of the British women performed in 2008 and 2009, when Sky was being planned: Nicole Cooke in 2008 and 2009, Emma Pooley in 2008 and 2009, Lizzie Armitstead in 2009 (she was a trackie in 2008), and Sharon Laws in 2008 (she had time out because of injuries, and focused on MTB for 2009). If you’re not familiar with women’s races, the women’s Grand Tours were the Grand Boucle, Tour de l’Aude and Giro Donne, and CDM means World Cup – those, with the World and Olympic Champs are the biggest and most prestigious races.)

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Para-cycling

Of course, the women’s road riders actually are treated really well in comparison with Para-cyclists who race on the track. Sarah wrote about this, too.

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One thing that is so frustrating, as cycling fans, is that we have no way of making our voices heard in trying to make a change. Sarah has emailed the UCI to ask questions about Toscana twice, and has had no reply. If any of you read this and have any idea how we can try to get our questions about Toscana answered, or how we can ask Qs about things like Para-cycling, please can you let us know, at prowomenscycling [at] gmail [com] or in the comments. We know we’re not “real” media, but we love this sport and want to do our bit to try to make things better.

One thing Dan forgot to mention in the show is that Karl Lima from Hitec tweeted that he missed Ina’s presence in the peloton to talk some sense into everyone:

I see team Tibco “wins” Toscana. Its on my mail. Really missed Ina to talk some sense in the right language today.

It hasn’t been all bad. We didn’t get around to talking about any of this, but….

Things we loved this week

MTB

The MTB World Cup in Hafjell had some fantastic racing, and even better photography than normal, and that’s saying something. Sarah was entranced by the DH photos, with light streaking through trees, and riders performing miraculous feats. Here are all the videos and links we found – and we loved this description of MTB riders – yes! Exactly this!

Then I died on my bike and dropped through the peloton like a stone in water. I have always been annoyed when “ lead out girls” drop through the peloton like a parked car when the sprints starts, but now I was that girl. When I rode (or rolled) over the finish line and saw Chloe celebrate I was so proud of her and us, the whole team. We won a stage in Holland Ladies tour and we did it because we rode a great race together. Yesterday Chloe helped me and today I was able to pull the sprint for her, amazing team feeling! That evening we celebrated the team’s first ever victory in Holland Ladies Tour with a delicious cake on the team meeting. Oh yes, we deserved those calories.

Cyclocross

Helen Wyman started her campaign to steal the USA trophies with two wins at Green Mountain CX. Check out the best podium ever – made of bike wheels! in the Cyclcocross Magazine report. Here are Helen’s video diaries after Green Mountain day 1 and day 2

(Sarah loved the description of Arley Kemmerer’s win at Nittany from CX Mag – great start to the race!)

Retirements

Upcoming racing

Check out the great Toscana 2013 website, and follow their twitter. The tv coverage will vary per country, and there’ll be a ton of streams, but some people can watch it all live on the UCI Youtube. They’ll be streamed on these links – click to see if it’ll be geo-restricted for you

7 thoughts on “Podcast 2013 – Episode 31 – Sarah Has an Embolism”

I had never realised there was and age limit on womens racing teams, totally slipped under the radar. WTF! Where does that come from? Some geriatric arse of a UCI official thinking at 28 they should stop playing at being an athletes and go leave the racing to the boys? Tossers.

Yes! The age rules are because the women’s teams are governed under the same rules as men’s Continental teams – and they have this rule that most riders in a team must be under a certain age – 27? This is because Conti teams are the development layer, and should provide opportunities for young men.

HOWEVER! That words because there’s a Pro-Conti and a World Tour for good riders to “graduate” into. With women, we only have one layer of teams, so this rule is a nonsense, and amounts to age discrimination.

It’s another reason why we should have a “Pro” level for teams – with a minimum wage, the only ones who can race World Cups and .HC races etc – and no stupid arbitrary rules like the age one. Seems so simple, right?

hehe, now there a way to stir things up, take the UCI to the Euro court of human rights.

Not sure we even need Has Cars races, unless we get women’s version of all the Monuments, that would be suitable.
If we had two ranks of riders then .1 and .2 is probably enough. Maybe WWT (womens WT) and .1 for pros, and .2 for U23s or national teams.
I do think it would be useful if the rank gave an immediate indication of what teams and riders would be there. The men mostly but not entirely have that now, but since we want the womens side to grow I would err on the side of as much clarity as possible, easier to sell it to people that way.

You may be confusing simple and useful, with simple and useless, and we know which one is the UCI’s specialty topic.